Staff & Associates
Academic Faculty - Professor Tom Franks
Tom Franks is Professor of Water Resources and Development, Bradford
Centre for International Development, University of Bradford. He has
extensive experience of teaching, research and consultancy in development
planning and management. He was educated at the University of Cambridge in
England where he graduated in 1970 with a BA (Mech Sciences). He gained an
MA (Mech Sciences) at the same University in 1985.
For the past twenty years he has been a senior academic at the
Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID). His
responsibilities include the co-ordination and teaching of the Masters
Degree in Project Planning and Management and the management of the
Centre’s consultancy projects. He is also co-ordinator for a programme
of Project Planning and Management in Tajikistan, funded by the Aga Khan
Foundation. Recently he has undertaken a project monitoring assignment
for the EU in Tanzania and was earlier the co-ordinator for a major
EU-funded programme of technical assistance to the Public Investment
Programme in the Baltic States.
He is a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the
International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage. He was Chairman,
British National Committee, from 1998 to 2001. He is also a Member,
Association for Project Management.
Prior to entering academic life, Professor Franks had ten years’
experience in consultancy working in a large number of developing
countries. In his early career he was a Senior Engineer with Sir M
MacDonald & Partners in the UK.
His key areas of expertise and research interests are:
- Institutional development and capacity building
- Project planning and management
- Consultancy management
- Water and natural
resources policy and management